Winner: King’s College London
Project: Air Pollution campaign
King’s College London wanted to draw on its research to bring to public attention the health impacts of air pollution as part of its mission to serve society, both locally in London and globally.
But to achieve maximum reach, with no funding, it needed partners.
A year-long campaign was therefore planned around specific research projects, journal publications and key dates and in collaboration with companies, government bodies and charities.
For the launch of the project, in March 2019, the university focused on research being carried out in schools, arranging a press launch in partnership with the Mayor of London at one of the schools involved so that teachers, parents and children were at the forefront of the press campaign.
It partnered with the technology company Dyson, which had provided purpose built technology for the research, to produce a video and with the Channel 4 Dispatches team.
The same month, the communications team arranged a Science Media Centre briefing to highlight research that explored links between teenage psychosis and high air pollution. It also partnered with the British Council on an app showing outdoor workers’ exposure to pollution.
The following month, King’s published research on the number of Londoners hospitalised due to harmful air pollution and offered expert commentary on London’s new Ultra-Low Emission Zone.
In September, the focus was on research into exposure of London taxi drivers, while in October it was on research into the number of hospitalisations across UK cities on high pollution days.
For this it partnered with UK100, a network of local government leaders who have pledged to shift to 100% clean energy, and timed publicity to anticipate the mayor’s air pollution conference.
In the same month, King’s launched the final schools report showing children were exposed to high levels of air pollution on the school run, with the lead scientist presenting at New Scientist Live.
Finally, it partnered again with UK100 and joined up with 15 health and environment NGOs to present two further research stories on health impacts of air pollution and ran an exclusive with the Times on a further story about exposure to air pollution of commuters on the London underground.
It also developed an interactive map through which commuters could search pollution levels at their own stations.
The campaign achieved 3,884 pieces of media coverage, including two front-page stories. There were also nearly 7,250 social media and blog posts and 175 NHS doctors and staff cited King’s research in an open letter calling on the government to commit new funding and resources to the air pollution problem.
Within the university, staff and students were inspired to consider their own air pollution exposure and change their commute to reduce it.
Runner up: University of Oxford
Project: True Planet: Oxford research for a changing world
Trusted and verifiable sources of information are particularly important in an era when other kinds of information abound.
Oxford wanted to inspire debate around climate science and to position its academics both as trusted experts for government and industries to consult and as a source of information for the public.
True Planet was created by a small in-house team, with a budget of £10,000.
First, members of the team undertook research, including surveys, to find out how well the public understood climate change and its implications. They also identified the areas of expertise Oxford had to offer.
The campaign involved bringing together more than 100 experts from 80 departments across the university, including those working in social sciences, humanities and medicine to inform debate not only on the science behind climate change but also on its political and social implications.
Four climate events in 2019 were targeted: August’s meeting of the G7, which had a strong climate focus; September’s global climate action summit; the UN general assembly, also in September, and the annual UN climate conference, COP25, in December.
For each event, the team produced expert briefings, fed into national policy discussions, created material for those involved, posted on social media and developed partnerships with social media influencers, which opened up new audiences.
The campaign also involved a web site offering the latest climate research and a podcast series, in which leading figures involved in climate change were interviewed. This recorded more than 100,000 listens.
For the G7 meeting, Oxford experts were involved with a debate on climate strategy in Westminster and the university put together a case study guide showcasing the latest environmental research, which was distributed to 800 people, including 15 MPs.
The campaign developed relationships between academics and policymakers and generated interest from donors and funders.
Academics at all levels were able to raise their profiles and many established long-term connections with individual policymakers. An Oxford academic was a key policy expert during Channel 4’s leaders’ climate debate.
Oxford research was quoted in prime minister’s questions in the UK and at the UN General Assembly. It also fed into the Environment Bill.
Social media posts reached more than 15 million people, while the research hub has been visited more than 50,000 times.
The campaign also contributed to a substantial reorganisation of Oxford’s own approach to sustainability.
Runner up: University of Reading
Project: #ShowYourStripes
More than 100 thin bars of colour, progressing from deep blue to deep red, have become a symbol of global warming.
The warming stripes graphic, showing changes in annual average temperatures across the world, was a concept developed by Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading.
He disseminated it widely among his Twitter followers of fellow scientists, policymakers and the general public, inspiring designs for dresses, scarves and even a customised Tesla. Dozens of TV weather presenters in the United States celebrated the June 2018 summer solstice by wearing climate stripes-themed badges, ties and necklaces.
Reading’s communications team wanted to build on this movement, highlighting the scientific work behind the simple image and raising the profile of their institution as a leading centre for meteorology and climate research.
With fellow scientists in the department for meteorology and National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Hawkins gathered data and generated a bank of new, localised warming stripes images, showing how climate change was heating every corner, country and region of the Earth.
With the university’s Institute for Environmental Analytics, he then created showyourstripes.info, a website allowing individuals to see warming stripes images that applied to where they lived.
In June 2019, the university used a week-long Made at Reading campaign, building on the national Made at Uni campaign run by Universities UK, to highlight its environmental research expertise and commitment to sustainability.
#ShowYourStripes was a key part of this, with stripes graphics made available for around 200 countries.
Within a week, the stripes had been downloaded more than a million times, while asking people who shared the graphics to use #ShowYourStripes ensured widespread visibility on social media.
The stripes featured on the BBC, ITV, NBC and the Weather Channel and were shared on social media by Extinction Rebellion, the World Meteorological Organisation, the World Wildlife Fund Climate and Energy initiative and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Rock band Enter Shikari used them across three giant screens as a backdrop for their set at Reading Festival, while US senators and representatives wore stripes badges at President Trump’s state of the union address in February 2020.
Newspapers across the world featured the stripes, and they inspired a light show in Berlin and placards at school climate strikes from the Netherlands to Malaysia.
The university also provided stripes badges and ties for UK MPs.